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This is... John Grant. Discover more ahead of his Brighton show

20 Jul 2015

With new album Grey Tickles, Black Pressure out this autumn, lauded singer-songwriter John Grant brings his powerful live show to Brighton Dome in November.

It’s been the most spectacular of journeys for John Grant; from the point where he thought he’d never make music again, to winning awards, accolades and Top 20 chart positions, collaborating with the likes of Sinead O’Connor, Goldfrapp and Elton John, as well as a Best International Male Solo Artist nomination at the 2014 BRITS Awards.

One of the most beautiful voices of the 21st century, matched by a song-writing and lyrical prowess that conveyed every atom of pain, fear and endurance that has defined Grant’s life so far, his songs speak of both self-awareness and the most life-affirming streak of dark and scabrous humour. Despite all his personal and career setbacks in the past, former The Czars frontman Grant has continued to build on the incredible acclaim won by his first two solo albums, 2010’s Queen Of Denmark and 2012’s Pale Green Ghosts.

Hear Pale Green Ghosts from the album of the same name, released 2013 on Bella Union

MOJO made the former its album of 2010, whilst the latter entered the UK Top 20 in its first week and ended up as Rough Trade Shop’s Album of the Year 2013, The Guardian’s No.2 and in MOJO and Uncut’s Top Five. In the autumn of 2014, he embarked on a tour accompanied by the Royal Northern Sinfonia orchestra while also playing a prestigious show for BBC Radio 6 Music with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Alongside sell out shows across Europe, he recently embarked on a US tour as special invited guest of the Pixies. Such recognition deservedly cements his reputation as the most disarmingly honest, caustic, profound and funny diarist of the human condition in the persistently testing, even tragic, era that is the 21st century.

His November date at Brighton Dome comes a month after the release of Grant’s third album, the invitingly titled Grey Tickles, Black Pressure; a veritable tour-de-force that further refines and entwines his two principal strands of musical DNA, the sumptuous tempered ballad and the taut, fizzing electronic pop song.

‘I wanted to get moodier and angrier on this record, but I probably had a lot more fun making it,’ Grant explains. ‘I want to continue to challenge myself. To keep collaborating, to get the sound or the direction that will take me where I need to go. To keep taking the bull by the horns.’

Watch the trailer for John Grant's new album:

There are newer musical accomplishments across its panoply of towering sound, like the title track’s new steely demeanour, while the ominous drama of Black Blizzard echoes both John Carpenter and Bernard ‘Black Devil Disco Club’ Fevre’s beautiful and icy synthscapes. The contagious, gleeful You And Him marries buzzing rock with a squelchy electronic undertow, while orchestral drama swathes the bad-dreamy Global Warming and the album’s gorgeously aching widescreen finale Geraldine.